Bloody Red Flag
by Alhaeron
Summary: Re-posting of a story I wrote three years ago. Tim Stevenshire gets sucked into the world of The Patriot, sees her friend killed, joins the Redcoats, and things get seriously dicey. Not a Mary Sue, Tavington/OC.
1. Maelstrom

**Bloody Red Flag**

**Alhaeron (formerly T.R.)**

**Disclaimer: **Oh, I'm sure you all know by now. Don't own _The Patriot_, Tavington, anybody in it, blah blah blah blah blah. Blah. No profit.

**A/N: **Back again by popular demand. I wrote this in 2005 and I decided, because I have way too much free time, to re-post it. That being said, I have no electronic copies of it, only hard ones, so this could take a while. Also, due to the fact that I'm writing a real book, that takes precedence, so if I have to choose between working on this and UFS (the book), it'll be UFS. Anyway, like I said way back when, this is a time travel fic. It's not a Mary Sue. It's going to be edited a little bit, because I've gotten a lot better at writing since then and there are some things I wrote that I just can't stand to read now, so I'm not going to inflict them upon you.

**Chapter One: Maelstrom**

My boots crunched on the snow as I trudged down the road. It was grey with the dirt and grit from the passing cars, and had been so drained of any real liquid that it could barely be called snow anyway. Winter was decaying, but spring was still a long way off. It was depressing, to say the least: walking home from school at one in the afternoon, nose bleeding like a faucet, carrying a heavy backpack and the even heavier news of yet _another _suspension. Even better, I felt no remorse whatsoever, a clear recipe for disaster. My antagonists had deserved what they'd gotten, and worse. I was sorry, sure; sorry I'd gotten caught! But that wasn't the way to go when you wanted to get off with minimum punishment. As if suspension wasn't enough.

The fight was draining from me, and I became increasingly aware of the throbbing pain in several parts of my body, most noticeably my nose. I sighed, a gust of pale dragons' smoke issuing from my mouth and billowing away into the grey air to join the clouds that hung heavily over the town, and had been for days. It seemed they just couldn't make up their mind whether to snow, rain, sleet, all three—or nothing at all.

Well, there was nothing for it. I bent over the snowbank to my right and dug out a chunk of the least grimy snow I could find, and held it to my nose. Despite the cold air, the heat of my face set to work on it instantly, and I felt runnels of dirty water zigzagging their courses down my lips and jaw. When I got rid of the snow, I would be left with what I called a 'grit moustache,' a dirty grey mask on whatever part of my features the snow had been used to numb. The size of the grit moustache—sometimes it covered all of my face, give or take one eye—was a device my parents used to gauge the severity of the conflict. And I was no stranger to conflict.

Now, there's a few things I have to explain about myself. I'm not a bully. I don't get into fights for fun and profit. In fact, all I want is to be left alone, and if you do that, we'll get along just fine. But ever since my parents (dragging me, of course, kicking and screaming) had moved us from New York to South Carolina, I had not been left alone. This was a good school I had enrolled in. They'd said I'd settle in just fine—but I hadn't 'settled in.' A gang of drop-outs—some having dropped out long before legal age—gave me grief from the moment I stepped onto the premises to the moment I hit home turf again. Once, someone had thrown a rock through my window, shattering it and nearly braining me. I could never figure out who it was exactly, but I had some pretty good ideas.

These kids hung around school, taking lunch money, exacting vengeance for any wrongs (real or imagined) done to them, and keeping a sort of equilibrium of tyranny within the school, slouching around until someone chased them off the premises. They had dropped out of school, sure, but they couldn't seem to leave it. They participated in every activity of school, even taking lunch with the students (although this was probably motivated by the fact that you could get a burger and fries for fifty cents, where anywhere else you could have gotten a single French fry for that much since the fifties). All activities, that is, except classes.

I don't know why they decided to pick on me, though I've formed several conjectures. I guess they don't like the quiet type. Oh, don't get me wrong; I'm not shy, per se; I can raise my voice when I want to. But that's just the thing: usually, I don't want to. More specifically, I don't really feel the need to. But enough about that. The first time one of these assholes jostled me (okay, maybe it was the sixth time; I was trying the 'tolerance' method of making them go away), I punched him. With people like them, usually all it takes is one show of mettle and they decide it's not worth it to bother you anymore. I figured that sending them back to their dens with split lips and bloody noses, whining and licking their wounds, would teach them not to mess with me, and I could continue my life in relative peace and quiet. It was _senior year_, for God's sake. I had just started a new school, none of the teachers knew me, and thus couldn't write adequate recommendations for me, and I was a virtual nobody in a land where everybody knew everybody else. I needed to concentrate.

Boy, was I wrong.

For one thing, I learned that my antagonists were just the tip of the iceburg. They came back the next day with a couple of giants who had biceps like bowling balls, which they flexed constantly. All right, lovely. This might take a little more work than I'd anticipated.

Boy, was I right.

I got beat up this time, but I was smarter and faster the next time, and the next. But the time after that, I got caught. While these may not have been students, I was entrapped by a rule that forbade fighting, roughhousing, etc. on school premises. And bam. I was slammed into in-school suspension. But it didn't stop. Maybe those assholes couldn't stand to see somebody with the courage to stand up to them, so they kept trying to crack me. I kept trying to tell them that it wouldn't work, but they were so stupid they couldn't even understand fists. I got more discreet about my fighting, but not even ninjas never get caught.

Eventually, though, fighting found me a friend. It had gotten to the point that I got so pissed every time I saw them that I engaged on sight. It didn't matter whether it was me they were bullying, or someone else—they were going down. So, after I'd sent the jackals yelping away, and the red had begun to wash out of my vision, I found that I had rescued someone, one of my fellow students. She grabbed my hand with a jovial air, shook it warmly, and said, "Hey, I'm Christeen. Chris, for short, but I don't think I know you. And you are?"

"Oh, hey…Um, I have a kind of…bad name. It's, uh…it's…" I sighed. I didn't like my name. "It's, uh, Timothea." I waited for her to burst out in peals of laughter, ask what my parents had been smoking when they named me that, and run back to tell all her friends about it, but when she didn't, I added quickly, "But people just call me Tim."

"Tim, it's very good to meet you. I've actually heard about your private feud with these…gentlemen, and I must say, you are widely commended for it, even though you may not know of it. I'm Senior Editor of the school newspaper—" At this, I flinched, but Chris had a discerning eye for human behavior and amended, "But I doubt that a secret warrior such as yourself, one on a private vendetta, really needs to be giving an interview. Too much publicity. Might attract others to the cause, no?"

"Hey," I said, with a false air of zealousness, "I'm all about the people, y'know? I'm recruiting, as a matter of fact. Put an ad in the paper: High school ninja seeks like-minded warriors to defeat asshole dropout clan. Call 1-800-GET-THEM-BACK. Toll free."

"I would," she said with a dramatic sigh, "but alas, it is too wordy. 75-word maximum. Hey, how d'you feel about Drama Club?" And we were off, and I'd found my first friend in this place.

But it was not the school administration. They knew that what I was doing was for a just cause—and they didn't care. Years of experience in the battlefield of school had given them two things: a jaded attitude towards all students, and a complete and utter belief in the authority that only their system could provide. And so they didn't like me—didn't like my 'vigilante dealings,' as they so delicately put it—and most certainly didn't like my problem with authority, which I am here forced to admit to. But the authority I had problems with was not so much theirs as the authority of the people I fought, who held their size, strength, and meanness over the heads of the students, demanding obeisance and lunch money from all.

What I found out, however, from examining this system, was that they were nearly one and the same. The teachers' system was inept, but they wouldn't do anything about it, and the relative order by terror that these…_people _provided only furthered their illusion, forming a vicious cycle. Only, I was dirt, clogging up the spoke of their great wheel. And so I needed to be eliminated. There were no more warnings about fighting on school grounds. There were just suspensions and detentions and community service sentences, spraying off the obscene graffiti my friends had plastered on any available surface they could find.

But it only drew me closer to my real friend, Chris, who listened to my hypotheses and ranting about the screwed-up 'justice' system and agreed wholeheartedly. She bullied me into writing a series of flaming opinion pieces that she published anonymously in the newspaper. But nobody really read the newspaper; it was just a work of love. So nothing really changed. My parents got wind of the fights, despite my working double-time to cover them up, and their expressions became permanently long-suffering. I had no allies in that quarter.

But that's my history in a nutshell. Well, at least the landscape was beautiful. South Carolina was truly lovely, especially in summer when everything was in bloom. We'd bought an old colonial plantation, one that had been burnt and rebuilt, or so the real estate agent said, and I was inclined to believe that, as I found a piece of blackened timber half-buried in the luscious garden one day.

When Chris heard about the house, she freaked. "Oh my God, that's so cool! I _have _to see it!" This prompted the beginning of the first of a long line of weekly movie nights at my place. It might have been colonial in origin, but it had a great TV. On this particular day, when, as you can guess, I'd been suspended out-of-school, the only thing I had to look forward to was movie night with Chris. My parents were out of town, so there was no way they could say no, even in light of recent events. I remembered that it was her turn to bring a movie, and that she'd said she was bringing _The Patriot_. She'd tried to show it to me once before, but I'd gotten bored and fallen asleep. I anticipated nothing better this time around, but Chris was good company and we always liked to throw popcorn at the bad guys, so there'd be something to do.

She was a freak about _The Patriot. _Seriously. She was madly in love with Heath Ledger, who played some dork named 'Gabriel,' and I'd seen _A Knight's Tale_ and thought he was okay (although just between you and me, Adhemar's way cooler) so I was willing to watch him again. I trudged up the last few steps home and up to the porch, through the door, up the steps, taking a right. My room. The ceilings in these places were ridiculous. I was tall, about as tall as a medium-sized guy, but colonial people had been midgets! I could reach up and touch the ceiling, and my elbow would still be bent.

I locked my door (out of habit, even though my parents weren't home) and brooded. The mirror that lay across the room from where I stood showed an awful mix of blood and dirt on my face. Suddenly, I had no patience for it. Grabbing my favorite red sweatshirt from my chair, I unlocked my door and stormed into the bathroom with heavy steps, even though there was no one to hear my discontent except the silent house. The floorboards couldn't keep their peace, and groaned in protest.

Once in the bathroom, I grabbed a washcloth and began scrubbing at my face, not even careful of my still-tender nose. In fact, I relished each stab of pain, and kept on scrubbing even though the grit was long gone. Finally, I went back to my room, put Coldplay and my sweatshirt on, and brooded a while longer. I was still brooding when Chris breezed in, wafting a smell like a movie theater behind her. She'd brought about ten gallons of deeply buttered popcorn. We might have been Mutt and Jeff physically—she was about 5'1"—but we shared a passion for disgustingly buttered popcorn.

"You haven't been brooding all day, have you?" she said with a disapproving frown. I wasn't in the mood for a lecture.

"No," I said, plastering a smile on my face. She rolled her eyes at me and moved to fire up the DVD player. "You liked Adhemar, so I bet you'll like Tavington."

"Who?"

"_Colonel Tavington_. The bad guy. He's really mean. Just wait, Tim. He's great. Now come on." She dragged me to the couch and pushed a bucket of popcorn into my hands. Oh well, I thought as I began to shovel food mechanically into my mouth, I'd be getting popcorn. The scene unfolded on a burnished wood-and-brass trunk full of a bunch of tools of war, like an old powder horn. A tomahawk was put into the trunk, and it was closed. Mel Gibson's gravelly voice said something about sins coming back to haunt him, and then the scene shifted.

The hot sun of the movie had a soporific quality to it, I thought as the drama unfolded. As the oldest son, Gabriel, a.k.a. Heath Ledger, returned home and day dawned once again, I was flagging. My eyelids fluttered, threatening sleep. Chris kept pinching me, but as a troop of Green Dragoons (or so she said) came galloping down the dusty road, I couldn't help it. I sank into a half-state, and after a while, even the pinching fell away. I thought I could hear gentle snores issuing from my friend, but I had more important things to do. I dreamt…

***

When I awoke, my cheek was caked with a muddy mixture of dust and saliva. Even without opening my eyes, I had a sense that I was not where I was supposed to be, and when I opened my eyes, glaring sunshine confirmed it. I knew that I had been asleep for some time, as it had been dark when I'd first closed my eyes. I lay on my back and appraised the quality of the light. It had to be perhaps noon. That was interesting. I didn't usually sleep that long. I wasn't sick, was I?

Despite the dust I lay in, it was quite a comfortable spot. I could have remained there for a while, waiting for something to happen, but as my ears began to readjust they picked up the sounds of screams and the occasional burst of gunfire. I scrambled quickly to my feet. I appeared to have been lying in a dirt road of some sort, and off to my left stood a house. It looked eerily similar to the one I'd seen depicted in the movie. I squinted at it. It lay a few hundred yards off, and was surrounded by a large group of men on horses in what appeared to be a kind of uniform and some very strange hats. A larger group of men in a vaguely similar uniform milled around as well, but it was apparent that they were the subordinate group.

One of the men on horseback, whom I was figuring to be part of some sort of army, was obviously in command. He gestured with pistol or hand, and something occurred in the direction of his gesture. At one instance, he pointed at a spot on the ground. Closer inspection revealed shapes stretched out in the dirt. I figured them to be people or brightly painted bags. A few of the un-mounted soldiers aimed muskets at them. A crack of musket fire resounded through the area, and smoke billowed up, obscuring my vision. But I knew what had occurred. They had killed those—"Mmmmph!"

Someone had clapped a hand over my mouth and dragged me to the ground. I had no time to struggle as they began pulling me into a cornfield adjoining the road. I turned shocked eyes upward and saw Chris. When we'd made it into the cornfield, she let go of me, and I instantly rounded on her. "Chris! How'd you get here? Where are we? And who's that guy in the funny hat?"

"Shhh!" she hissed. "Don't you recognize it? This is the Martin plantation! And those are the British Green Dragoons, commanded by Colonel William Tavington, also known as the Butcher of the Carolinas!" She had a rapturous expression on her face. "Don't you see, Tim? This is great! I don't know how we're here, but this is…totally awesome!"

Her enthusiasm was not catching. From what she'd told me of Tavington, he'd more than earned his 'Butcher' rep. Indeed, he seemed the sort to shoot you as soon as look at you. But Chris had seen the movie and I hadn't, so I swallowed my concerns and said, "What do we do?"

"Well, isn't it obvious? This is the Revolutionary War! We've got to find the Continentals, after all this has gone down of course. They'll let us join; they have to! We can help with the Revolutionary War!" I wasn't so sure.

"What about Tavington?"

"What about him? He's going to be killed anyway, at the Battle of Cowpens. But that's a long way off."

"Well, he seems to have control of the situation at hand, not any Continentals. In fact—" I poked my head out of the corn and squinted, catching a glimpse of a blue uniform. Someone in a blue coat was being subdued and restrained. "I think he's captured one now," I said smugly, shading my eyes with my hand.

"Oh yes," Chris nattered on complacently, "that'll be Gabriel. But don't worry; Benjamin Martin's going to get him back in a little while. We should just lay low 'til then. C'mon, let's get closer."

"_That's _laying low?" I muttered, but followed her as she began to creep through the corn. I could see the situation intensifying up ahead, until one of the boys standing on the porch (I could see the family there clearly now), a boy of fifteen or sixteen, broke away from the group and charged the Redcoats, who were engaged in tying Gabriel's hands. We were about a hundred yards off when Tavington coolly cocked his pistol, leveled it at the boy, and fired. On pure instinct, I hit the dirt. When I finally dared to poke my head up once more, the boy was very dead, and his father, presumably Benjamin Martin, cradled the body in his arms. Tavington gave another order, and a few Dragoons, who carried flaming torches, flung them at the house. It was up in flames instantly.

The colonel raised his arm, and his Dragoons formed up behind him. As they galloped past us on the road, Chris pulled me back down into the corn. I didn't see his face.


	2. Bloody Red Flag

Bloody Red Flag

**Alhaeron (formerly T.R.)**

**Disclaimer**: Oh, I'm sure you all know by now. Don't own _The Patriot_, Tavington, anybody in it, blah blah blah blah blah. Blah. No profit.

**Author's Note**: Back by popular demand. I wrote this in 2005 and I decided, because I have way too much free time, to re-post it. That being said, I have no electronic copies of it, only hard ones, so this could take a while. Also, due to the fact I'm writing a real book, that takes precedence, so if I have to choose between working on this and UFS (the book), it'll be UFS. Anyway, like I said way back when, this is a time travel fic. It's not a Mary Sue. It's going to be edited a little bit, because I've gotten better at writing since then and there are some things I can't stand to read now, so I'm not going to inflict them upon you.

**Chapter Two: Bloody Red Flag**

We stayed there for a long time, moving around occasionally, and I knew I'd misjudged the light. A little after Tavington had ridden on, I heard the sound of human feet, about three sets of footsteps to my ears, racing past. I shoved myself down as far as I could go into the dirt and waited, breath caught in my throat, but the sounds didn't falter, and soon were gone.

For the next few minutes, Chris gave me the skinny of the rest of the movie: who died, who was going to die, who'd get married and then die, and so on and so forth. I was still far too dazed to listen, because my mind was replaying what had happened to Thomas. I reeled between fighting back nausea and a blind desire to run after Tavington and pull out his damned guts, one by one. Why had Chris said I'd like him? That was preposterous. The man was a monster, who deserved to die the death Chris had prescribed for him, whatever that might be. My only regret was that it was at the end of the movie, and that was a long way from now. Speaking of which…

"Chris," I cut in pensively, "what about—time here? I mean, the movie's about two and a half hours long. Is that how long we're going to be here? But it spans a couple years, right? So will it be that long?"

"I don't know," she said, miffed at being interrupted, then warmed to the topic. "I'm not quite sure. We'll have to see. If it's two and a half hours, that could be weird—we'd be yanked forward in time fairly frequently. But then again, two years is a long time. And that doesn't solve the matter of where our bodies are in the real world. If they _are _there. And even though your parents are out of town, mine aren't and they'll miss me. And—"

"Chris," I said, "you're nattering."

"What am I supposed to be doing, then? I've got no answers, just questions."

"You're supposed to be telling me our plan, and why we've been in this place for the past hour."

"Oh." She stopped to consider her words. "Let's see. We've got to join the Continentals, but it'll be more fun as militiamen than as regulars. We're in here to wait for Benjamin to come back with Samuel and Nathan and then we'll follow him to the rebel camp until he gets his commission, and then we'll sign on as his first soldiers. Oh, and in the interim, we have to figure out how to disguise ourselves as boys."

"Long journey," I muttered, picking blades of grass and rolling them in my fingers. When I realized they were gradually being stained green, I stopped. "But really, Chris," I said, looking up at her, "shouldn't we be signing on with the British? From the looks of things, it's them who've got this war in the bag." Chris looked disapprovingly down her nose at me.

"That's precisely the attitude that's going to lose them this war! They underestimated the Continentals, and look where it got them: Yorktown, and Tavington with a bayonet through his throat!"

I gasped. "That's awful!"

"He'll deserve it, you'll see." I hearkened back to the shooting of Thomas, of Tavington's complete and utter lack of remorse, lack of any emotion whatsoever, but I still couldn't find it in myself to consider the sentence he was under justifiable. Death, yes. But death like that?

I harrumphed. "So, when will they be back?"

"Soon," Chris said. We waited for a while longer, making idle conversation and swapping dirty jokes, and every so often I gazed at the sky. The light began to deepen to a dusky golden-yellow, and I was about out of my head with boredom when I caught the sounds of tramping feet passing my spot. I pressed myself down in the field, but the steps didn't falter. As soon as I deemed it safe, I stood. Benjamin, Samuel, and Nathan were fleeing towards the little huddle of children, who had been engaged in some sort of clapping game but had stopped, seeing their father and siblings approaching.

Chris was instantly in transports. "Oooh, here it comes!" she said. "There'll be some family time, I expect, then they'll all be off to Aunt Charlotte's!"

"Aunt Who's?"

"Charlotte's! She used to live in Charlestown, but then the Redcoats took over the town and she was forced to move to her plantation. It's a few miles east of here."

"And how reliable," I said irritably, growing very tired of her enthusiasm, "are those coordinates? I expect they'll have a wagon, and horses can go faster than us, and they can go further. They'll lose us in no time."

"I hadn't thought of that," Chris said, frowning, and I instantly felt so smug that I was sorry. God, what was this place turning me into? I couldn't be very good company at all. I'd almost rather wish Tavington on her than my grouchy self. Maybe I was just hungry.

At that point Chris's eyes regained their shine, and she said, "I've got it! Roads around here go to basically one place, because there isn't very much development. Maybe a few neighboring farms, but other than that, it's a clear shot to Charlotte's, and we can ask directions from anyone we need to."

"It's _miles!_" I whined, but without much hope. When Chris got onto a project, any project at all, she would clamp onto it like a bulldog and not let go until it had either died completely or been completed. And this was for the slightest thing. It took a far more important project to get my full attention: like bullies, for example.

"Come on," she said, with facetious anger. "You've logged far more miles conditioning for those teams of yours, remember? And riding. You should at least be able to handle a few miles at a good clip. Now move, soldier," she said, "and I'll have no more of this complaining. We've got some miles to cover. At least it's through mostly Continental territory."

"I wish I had your confidence," I muttered, rubbing dust off my sweatshirt. It was going to be a _very _long journey.

***

We logged two dusty miles before I could stand it no longer. I was just so _hungry_, so tired, and _so very grumpy _that finally Chris called a halt and helped me steal some apples out of a basket inside a farmyard. We snacked on them as we walked on, and the light and scenery began to change. The houses became less small farmhouses and more grand, sweeping plantations. I saw long columns of slaves toiling in the afternoon sun, and as an overseer moved up to one who had paused in his labors, I turned away and shuddered, and saw Chris having a similar reaction. This was one aspect of the era that I hadn't anticipated, and I suspected neither had she.

As dusk began to fall, we had logged five miles. After getting further directions from a farmer in a cart (he only took one glance at our strange garb and seemed in a dreadful hurry to be off, but I reached into my waistband as though to pull out a weapon and he decided to talk to us), we found we had three more miles to go. My feet ached; no, my entire body ached unbearably, every step causing pain to lance through my hips up to my shoulders. Winter was my off-season, when I took a break from any athletic endeavors I had, and so I had lost the finesse and athletic prowess I had earned before. English riding was a demanding sport, but it could only burn off so many Snickers.

"I wish we could have a horse," I said. Any jaded old farm nag would do, roach-backed and ewe-necked and whatever else, just something to take the weight off my feet. Chris didn't respond. She was beyond much more than grunting or snorting to express emotion, but she plugged along mechanically and resolutely. After a few more minutes of griping, I, too, lapsed into silence. Dark came harder now, and Chris broke her tacit vow of silence for a minute to say that we'd probably make it in an hour or so. I didn't pay her much heed, however, as I knew and she knew that we both knew absolutely nothing about what we were talking about.

But it got far too tedious, just to walk along and not speak. About an hour later, Chris ventured, "I wonder why that man was so eager to help us when he saw you." We both knew to whom she was referring. The experience had shaken both of us.

"It's odd," I said. "It's not as though he thought I was carrying a concealed weapon. They don't do that these days, I think; it's against the rules of war. Everything has to be in plain sight. So it couldn't have been that." We came to a junction, and, not having had directions in a while, it being sometime past ten PM, we had no idea of what to do. "Oh, damn," we said in unison.

After bickering for a while over the choice of roads, it was decided that a nap was in order. We bedded down under a canopy of trees, prayed there were no spiders in the old dry long we used as a pillow, and slept.

***

Birdsong, and the sharp smells of morning woods, woke me. I opened my eyes to dappled sunlight twinkling down through the canopy, and squinted. "It's too early," Chris said from somewhere to my right, and rolled over. I turned to look at her. She was completely covered in the sap of some sort of seedpod. It glued her hair together in matted clumps and dotted in dark splotches all over her clothes. I couldn't help it. It was just so damn funny and I'd had so little to laugh about lately that I let out a great bark of laughter. Chris looked down at herself, scowled, and looked back at me. "Don't laugh too hard, Tim," she snapped. "You look like the Jolly Green Giant."

I looked at myself. It was true, but it only made me laugh the harder. Still, completing some sort of cleaning ritual turned out to be a real chore. Sap splotches dotted my jeans, though my treasured red sweatshirt was fairly untouched, much to my relief. But even running my fingers through my hair was well-nigh impossible.

Still, we managed (mostly), and were ready to go in half an hour (a splashing fight in the little stream we found about five minutes into the woods detained our progress considerably). But then we remembered the reason we'd taken a snoring break in the first place: our complete lack of directions. We were getting into an argument over whether to just pick one of the roads and hope for the best, or wait for someone to come along and give us directions (I argued vehemently against the latter for, as I said, Tavington could have killed everybody around here by now), when I noticed something the night had hidden from us. It was a set of wheel-ruts in mud, clearly pointing down the right fork. We were flying down it in an instant.

We checked our pace for breakfast, once again completing our thieving trick—or nearly. We were arrested, arms full of stolen produce, by a stern-looking matron with a broom. We thought we were goners, and she certainly seemed ready to smack us one, when she gave me an odd look that didn't completely meet my eyes. Instantly, her expression softened. "Poor lads," she said, "you look starved! Take what you want, but just…ask for it next time." Chris was about to protest, in the name of feminism that didn't quite exist yet, that we were lassies, not lads, but I kicked her in the shin and smiled at the woman.

"Thanks very much, ma'am. We promise to ask next time." She gave me a stern look, but said nothing. As we were leaving, I heard a man's voice behind me say, "Who were they, Mary? I didn't think they were local lads."

"They weren't," said the woman, with an edge of steel in her voice. "God damn King George."

I pondered her words as we ate, and could come up with no explanation. What did King George have to do with it? But before I could come to a conclusion, I saw a pair of horses come across the road, a little ways ahead of us. "Oooh, it's Gabriel and Benjamin!" said Chris, and she set off after them, calling back at me, "They're headed for the camp! It's not far from here!"

"You have no idea where it is," I yelled back, but called on my weary, sore legs to work for me once more.

This time, however, Chris knew what she was talking about. We crested a hill, and there was the Continental camp, laid out before us. To its right, there was a battlefield, strewn with bodies. A stench rose from it that we could smell from here. I wrinkled my nose and looked at Chris, but she shrugged. The entrance to the camp was concealed in heavy underbrush. Thorns pricked our exposed skin and tugged at our clothes as we forged our way towards it. Chris was spouting promises of what was to come at camp: a real meal, a bed, clean clothes—

"Halt," said a cold voice behind me, and I halted. "Turn slowly," continued the voice, and I did. "Don't move," said the man, who I now saw to be a Continental sentry. Chris stepped forward, saying, "Ah, there you are! We come in pea—" And then everything happened in a blur. Someone behind the sentry, presumably another Continental, shouted, "Damn it, Charles, it's a goddamn Redcoat! Shoot it, Charles, shoot it!"

"No, wait—" started to come out of my own mouth, but there was an explosion. I dropped, out of pure instinct, to the ground. There was a cry of pain, and then I was up and running. I could barely feel it, but I knew thorns were tearing at my clothes. The forest passed by in a blur. I could hear my heart thundering in my mouth, footsteps pounding, voices yelling, and then—

Silence. I stopped. I was in the middle of a clearing. Clouds were beginning to cover the sun, and it smelled like rain. "Wow, Chris," I said. "It looks like we got—Chris?" She wasn't there. I whirled wildly, turning everywhere, but she was nowhere to be found. A terrible fear began to well up in my chest, and I ran back the way I'd come. I thanked God fervently that He had seen fit to give me an excellent sense of direction. But as I came back to the place we'd met the Continentals in, my fears were confirmed. I saw them standing around a body, and ducked behind a tree. "That ain't no Redcoat, ya dumbass…that was a kid."

"Coulda been a spy," said the man with the musket, "but I guess we'll never know." They walked off. Rage boiled in me, but I was one girl, alone in the woods with no weapons. And then, I took a closer look at the body.

It was Chris.

"No," I said. "No, no, no, no, no…" I kept repeating it over and over. Raindrops began to trickle through the canopy as I sank to my knees next to Chris's body. I touched her, trying to turn her over so I could speak to her, make her get up, but my hands came away wet with blood. I struggled to wipe them off, and ended up smearing it all over my sweatshirt, darkening the red background. How could this have happened? Why would they shoot her? This was insane, this was unfair, this was targeting civilians—

And then it clicked.

My sweatshirt was red. They thought I was a Redcoat. That explained it. That explained it all: the people who helped us because they though I was a Redcoat, gave us food because they thought I'd report them to Tavington or someone equally awful if they didn't…

And so it wasn't Chris they were shooting at.

It was me.

I had dropped to the ground just in time, and the musket ball had hit her.

It was all my fault.

But I couldn't dwell. I heard noise, not far off, and ran. Rain was soaking me through, but I didn't care; anger boiled just below my skin, keeping me so warm I could almost not stand it. I encouraged that anger, however, for it kept me warm, and if I ever let it out of me, I would become cold.

Just like Chris.

But then logic seeped into my storming brain. The sweatshirt was what got Chris killed in the first place, so I shucked it as I ran. It flew behind me, even in the rain, fluttering to the forest floor in my wake, like a bloody red flag.

**A/N: Sorry this took so long, I've just been super busy…about to graduate, you know, and I got bumped up to varsity lacrosse goalie so I had to go lose a bunch of games. You know how it is. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it. Reviews appreciated. More to follow. **

**Alhaeron**


	3. Killer

**Bloody Red Flag**

**Alhaeron (formerly T.R.)**

**Disclaimer: **Oh, I'm sure you all know by now. Don't own _The Patriot_, Tavington, anybody in it, blah blah blah blah blah. Blah. No profit.

**A/N: **Back again by popular demand. I wrote this in 2005 and I decided, because I have way too much free time, to re-post it. That being said, I have no electronic copies of it, only hard ones, so this could take a while. Also, due to the fact that I'm writing a real book, that takes precedence, so if I have to choose between working on this and UFS (the book), it'll be UFS. Anyway, like I said way back when, this is a time travel fic. It's not a Mary Sue. It's going to be edited a little bit, because I've gotten a lot better at writing since then and there are some things I wrote that I just can't stand to read now, so I'm not going to inflict them upon you.

**Chapter Three: A Killer**

After about a day of living in the woods, wild with grief and anger, I decided to call it quits. I couldn't catch food, and if I caught something, what would I do? Strangle it with my bare hands? So I pushed my anger deep into my mind. I could feel it permeating my being, even on such a minute level as my cells, and it was so hard to control I lost it several times. Eventually I achieved a tentative control, but I knew it wasn't permanent. If I were pushed too hard…

But I had to do something. This rage wasn't going to take care of itself, and I had no skills or weapons. While my original idea had been to confine it to the woods, I now realized I couldn't stay here. There were very few options in this time period for a girl my age. Some were too unseemly to think of. I could work as a housemaid or a servant of some sort, but I knew that my anger would never allow servitude. Not a nanny, either, for I hated kids anyway and I feared that I might kill one of my charges. So there was no place for me…as a girl. As a man, it was a brave new world.

My mind kept coming back to something Chris had said: "We have to join the Continentals…and figure out how to disguise ourselves as boys." I could never join the Continentals, not after what they'd done. Oh, the soldier who'd done it was probably dead already, victim of Tavington or one of his ilk, but on the off-chance… There was only one other side. I knew the Continentals would win the war eventually, and how much difference could one soldier on one side or the other make? It wasn't like I was a master warrior or anything; just a kid, really: eighteen years old, bereft of best friend, and with a serious rage problem. I had come across, in my wanderings, the Redcoat camp on the other side of the battlefield. So now I just needed to disguise myself.

I could do a pretty good British accent, or so I was told, though I'd never actually put it to the test against a native. But first, there was the simple matter of costume, props, and alibi, although the first two depended greatly upon the last, so we had better start with that one. When I walked into camp, what would I say, and who would I say it to? That was easily solved. I would probably be challenged by a sentry, and if not, a commanding officer. But how would I act? Officious? Proud? Cocky? Cold? Warm and gentle? Sweet and submissive? I ruled those last out. The British needed good fighters, not good target practice. If I wanted to have any chance at all, I'd need to prove myself.

Eventually, I decided that I was a Brit whose father had just come over hoping to make a life for himself, but our promised land grant had been raided and pillaged by the Continentals, and my family killed. I decided to join the British for revenge, but for king and country first and foremost… It was convincing enough. It would do. But now for the boy part…

I stole over to a nearby farmhouse and surveyed the scene. It was a tranquil day, a bunch of cows grazing in a paddock, chickens clucking around the yard, laundry drying on the washline, including a bunch of rags. While the inhabitants of the farm were absorbed in their many and various chores, I crept to the cow paddock and let them all out. Then I made a noise like a wolf on the hunt, and they bolted. I had to leap aside to avoid them trampling me to bits, but while the people were chasing after their cows and yelling, I snatched the rags off the clothesline and disappeared into the woods.

I spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out how to bind my chest convincingly, and tightly enough so that it would stay. It wasn't easy when one only has a running stream for a mirror, but I managed. Now all I needed was a costume… I returned to the farmhouse from whence I'd taken the rags, set the chickens loose this time, and stole what appeared to be boys' clothes. There were too many straps and buckles, and the tricorner hat was a damned nuisance, but when I was done I surveyed myself in the water. I looked well enough, if a little sloppy, but that'd have to do.

I marched into camp unhindered, much to my dismay. I'd rather been counting on being challenged, and thus being spared the tedious process of introducing myself. I was all right as soon as I'd been introduced, but at self-introductions I failed with astonishing regularity. Still, I held my head high as I headed to the main tent. The British had won that battle, so they were complacent and pleased. Sounds of celebration and clinking glasses issued from the tent that now loomed ahead of me. Still, not everyone was happy…

Someone stormed out of that tent in a fury, like a cannonball fired from a cannon. He seemed set to mow everyone in his path over, and I, unfortunately, was in his path. It was like being slammed by a freight train, and he wasn't sorry. "Watch where you're going!" he spat, as I tried to pick myself out of the ground. I managed a very weak "Sorry…" and looked up, into a pair of icy blue eyes and a very pronounced scowl. _Tavington_. "Sir," I added, gulping, and then ducked a bow that was half a curtsey because I'd forgotten my new gender. The colonel sniffed, taking in my clothes.

"You're not a soldier here. Who are you, and where are you from? And where's your escort?"

His officious manner drove the monster in me to a near boil, but I fought it down and said, "Sir, I don't have an escort and I'm not a soldier, but I plan to be one. Where do I sign up?" My tone managed to be both glacial and respectful, but I could see he cared nothing for it.

"Hmmph. I suppose you ought to go in there; someone will get you fitted out and assigned to an outfit." He pointed to a tent on his right, then eyed me suspiciously. _Uh oh. _At least the accent seemed to be holding up. "Where did you say you were from?"

"From England, sir. My father was a farmer here, with a grant from His Majesty—"

"I don't care." He waved off my explanation with a flick of his hand, and it was all I could do to keep from swinging at him. "Go in that tent; we lost a good many today, and we could use some reinforcement." And with that, he swept by me, leaving a chill air in his wake. Another man followed behind him, also in a Dragoon uniform, and gave me an apologetic glance, but hurried after his colonel double-time.

I opened the flap of the tent Tavington had indicated, and stepped inside. Racks stood along all of the "walls," holding equipment: hats, boots, uniforms, muskets, powder, ball. A bored-looking young man sat at a desk that looked like it had been through the wars, so to speak. He yawned as I came in, and then pulled a gigantic book and a quill towards him. An inkpot was imbedded in the right corner of the desk, and he dipped the quill in it, chewed on the feather end for a while, then droned, "Name?"

"Uh—ah—" My stupidity was not to be believed. Why in the hell had I not thought to make up a name? "Ah, Timothy—er—Stevenshire."

The soldier scribbled in his book, glanced at me fleetingly, and then instructed me over to the racks. He guided me through the process of picking out a uniform and gear—it really was all the same, he said, and the jacket and breeches were either going to be too long or too short. He showed me how to sling everything around myself and then said, "Look, don't expect this level of attention from anyone else in the army. I haven't had anyone in here for months; I'm so bored I've nearly gone insane. But come tomorrow, no one will care about you. You'll just be an ant in a vast army of ants. Officers is all that matters, them fancy _gentlemen_. Half of 'em have 'ad it all from day one, barely ever stepped foot on a _battlefield_. But it's really all the same. D company's got a vacancy. Report to them."

***

Training was molecular; basically another private showed me how to load and shoot my gun, and the rest would come naturally. Then there was the endless marching. They (my superiors) placed a gigantic load of emphasis on looking, acting, and marching the same. It got so very tedious that eventually I started provoking fights with those in the ranks around me just to break the boredom. When they snapped back at me or broke ranks to try and retaliate, our commanding officers wreaked havoc—on them. I kept my face studiously blank, and they passed me by without even seeing me.

The only lesson I learned from the drilling was that it went on forever and was without point. I mean, where was the sense in doing everything at the same time—marching, shooting, and even reloading? The only ointment in this was that I already knew how to shoot. The details of when and where I learned are irrelevant, and the weapons I had learned with were far different from the ones I had now, but I managed, and became quite accurate by the standards of the day, even if I was slow reloading. But then, so was everybody, and I practiced relentlessly in the common tent while my fellow soldiers played cards or told dirty jokes and anecdotes.

I was not interested in making friends. I had always been rather cold and aloof towards my tentmates, and they got more and more curious about me until my manner could fend them off no longer. Finally, one of them, a large man in good standing for a commission as a corporal, came over to me as I cleaned my musket. He stood there for a while, and I studiously ignored him, until he reached out and jabbed my shoulder not too lightly. When I didn't react, he said, "Think you're too good for us, eh?" I had plenty of things I wanted to say to that, but I held my tongue, albeit with some difficulty.

The man got more angry as I appeared to prove him right. "Think you're better than us, don't'cha? Too _fine an' fancy _to talk with the likes of us? Ah, I bet I know why. Fixin' on bein' one a them _offi_—" And then I had him against a post that was used to pitch the tent, my fingers wrapped tight around his throat. I wasted no time. I knew he was stronger than me, and if I gave him room to struggle, he'd get away and I'd have a fight on my hands. While I might not really mind one of those to work off the stress inspired by the interminable drilling, I would be pitted against all the others in my company and would be whipped soundly. That wasn't the lesson I wanted to teach, so I tightened my fingers around his windpipe until he was choking and gasping for breath. Then I spoke, for the first time of my own volition in a number of weeks.

"I would like to be left alone," I said, my voice deathly cold. "I am sure you are smart enough to understand that when I say it to you, but apparently too stupid to realize it flat out. When people make me angry, they come off the worse for it. I don't recommend it." I released his throat, and he collapsed, massaging it and gasping. "Well?" I demanded, resting one boot near him as though preparing to kick. He eventually choked out "Tha's all righ'…" He was whipped the next day for refusing to respond to a superior officer's query.

Despite my display, I did get into several fights, but I handled them all with efficiency and silence, until no one really cared to test me. Then, I was free to tackle the business of turning myself into a man. You could bind my chest, put me in breeches when everyone else was in petticoats, give me a musket and tell me to march, but there were some clear differences in the physical between men and women that I was never more aware of than now. In my favor, I had the height for it; I was taller than many of my companymates. My face could be called boyish. But there were also the mannerisms.

My fellow females seemed to have had a Feminine Behavior 101 class that I'd missed out on, so I had acquired few of the traits that seemed universal amongst them. But I did have a slight tendency to shriek at spiders, ticks and bees, which were in abundance here. Stopping that, I supposed, would have to come naturally, but there were some other things I didn't quite have the luxury of waiting for.

Like walking. Marching was all right. When we marched, everyone walked unnaturally, so I couldn't be told from Adam (or Eve). But walking, everyday, regular walking, proved to be a problem. I studied my fellow soldiers as they loafed, strutted, sidled, or ran, and reached conclusions that helped me amend my gait. Foremost, it was a more forward motion. One did not swing one's hips nearly as much. That was the hardest part. I practiced that for ages, pacing to and fro, but no one dared accost me on account of my infamous temper, rumor of which I encouraged heartily. There was also a certain set to the shoulders I saw in those who felt like they had some measure of authority. This set would be dropped as soon as one engaged in any sort of undignified activity like running or fighting, but in casual walking or even pacing it was present. I intended to have some measure of dignity, so I practiced that, too.

This was training, my real training I took upon myself. But that was not all war was.

***

My first battle, I didn't know what to expect. It wasn't a real battle, more of a skirmish, really, and would not be recorded in the annals of history. Even so, I feared that when I entered the fray, I would be stricken with a malady common among us soldiers: cowardice. But as it drew near, I felt a strange sensation swirling through my veins. It issued up from my stomach and made the blood in my veins boil. It made my senses, my vision, my nose, my ears, keener, but my sight was tinged red. I was seized with an urge to break, to burn, to kill. It could substitute for courage, this bloodlust, and I needed every inch of it I could get.

It was unreal. We lined up in rows and plugged two volleys of shots at each other. I was pleased to see that my two balls hit my targets, something a rare soldier could boast. The Continentals knew they were out-manned and out-classed, and they were ready to break at our second volley. And then…there was the charge. I leveled my bayonet at the fleeing back of some enemy and screamed, although it was more of a roar. I felt it plunge into his back with a sickening splutch and, lest I lose my musket, yanked it out immediately.

We had taken the field from minute one, but we were by no means done. The Dragoons charged in to mop everything up, and the Continentals, stuck between them (rock) and us (hard place), were forced to turn and fight. The noise was incredible: the screams of horses, the shrieks of the just-injured, the moans of the dying. It smelled like a meat blender, and that's really what it was. I lost my musket somewhere; I wasn't too worried about it except that it turned up in the hands of an opponent, who was using it to beat me. I reached around blindly on the ground between blows, among the bodies of the dead and dying, and seized the sword of a dead officer, not even drawn from its sheath. With a lightning-fast movement, I cut off my opponent's head, and would use the sword long after.

I was in one major battle and dozens of skirmishes, and my quick and ruthless efficiencies did not escape the notice of my superiors. I was promoted, ending up a sergeant after all was said and done. But nothing could, nothing would diminish my bloodlust, and with every emergence, it got harder and harder to fight down. But I did…for now. How could I stand it? Simple: the anger was so burning, so bright, destroying the human in me, and killing seemed the only way to exorcise the monster. It wicked away any feelings of guilt or remorse I might have had, leaving only a killer.

**A/N: Yeah, pretty melodramatic in hindsight. I also trimmed a lot of the Sue-ish elements, because for all I protested that she wasn't a Sue, I'm not sure she would have passed one of the Sue tests. But whatever. I love Tim. Despite being in fanfic, she was my first real non-Sue OC. Next chapter: Tav!**

**Alhaeron**


	4. Brutality Commended

**Bloody Red Flag**

**Alhaeron (formerly T.R.)**

**Disclaimer: **Oh, I'm sure you all know by now. Don't own _The Patriot_, Tavington, anybody in it, blah blah blah blah blah. Blah. No profit.

**A/N: **Back again by popular demand. I wrote this in 2005 and I decided, because I have way too much free time, to re-post it. That being said, I have no electronic copies of it, only hard ones, so this could take a while. Also, due to the fact that I'm writing a real book, that takes precedence, so if I have to choose between working on this and UFS (the book), it'll be UFS. Anyway, like I said way back when, this is a time travel fic. It's not a Mary Sue. It's going to be edited a little bit, because I've gotten a lot better at writing since then and there are some things I wrote that I just can't stand to read now, so I'm not going to inflict them upon you.

**Chapter Four: Brutality Commended**

We had been marching endlessly through muddy fields—it had been raining hard the last few days—and we were dog-tired. Rain had soaked into our wool uniforms, our hats, our underwear, ourselves, and each soldier smelled like a dog that makes a habit of puddle-jumping. I thought I'd never get the smell out. It was so quiet—none of the usual mosquitoes and musket balls that you had to slap away from your ears. Even the anger was quiet, quieted by boredom and exhaustion and rain that dripped from my soaking hat down into my chest cavity, where it dropped in small droplets and made the tight core of anger where my heart had been sizzle, fizz, hiss.

I led my company in silence. The day was still, the roads were still—just the rain and us—when suddenly, the sky began to crack open. Up ahead, not far, someone said, and I looked up from my automatically walking boots. It was true. If I had been particularly religious, I would have said some words of praise, and truth be told I felt like it. Instead, I tightened my grim lips further. My men knew me as not saying much but being a strict disciplinarian and a fair leader. Or at least, I hoped they did. Maybe they were just scared of me. I was content either way so long as they did what I told them to do.

And then, just as the sun poked a tentative ray through the gap in the clouds ahead, the field to our right came alive with musket-flashes. "Down!" I said, already on my stomach, and the rest of them followed suit. I did not stop to see whether we had lost anybody; I just heard the majority of bodies making loud splutches in the mud as they pressed themselves down into it. I began to move to the trees on our left, and heard the squishy sound of my company following suit. I no longer had to give them orders to wipe their noses and tie their bootlaces; they knew when to follow me, when to stay put, and when to go crazy. It wasn't typical British training, and my superior officers knew it, but it had worked so far so they'd let it continue.

The minute I'd received command, I began to overhaul the preconceived notion that you had to stand like a scarecrow waiting for an officer to tell you what to do. That had been the time I'd said the most to my subordinates, telling them that they were free-standing people and had to be able to at least walk and talk on their own. It was radical new thinking for most of them, but eventually they began to come around, and soon every man jack of them could have taken control of the company and led them to safety should their commanding officer go down. But I didn't really plan to.

I hit the edge of the tree line and threw my body behind a tree. As I did so, I was making calculations. A larger force was not far off; we were the frontrunners of this particular expedition, a little tendril of the army poking tentatively into the unknown landscape. If I managed to send someone off, we'd have reinforcements in a short time. But would it be fast enough? I did some more calculations, but couldn't come to a conclusive answer. The Dragoons weren't far off either, I knew, and if the Regular infantry couldn't be reached… Not that it was guaranteed that Tavington would come to our help. Camp gossip said he was continually being browbeaten by the Lord General, Cornwallis, for his part in creating the Ghost, a militia colonel that was wreaking merry hell with our supply trains and executing amazing ambushes. My company hadn't come up against him—yet. I would have liked to say that we could at least give him a run for his money, but if camp scuttlebutt about the amount of survivors he left (none) was true, I couldn't say that for sure. Of course, _I _knew that the Ghost was none other than Benjamin Martin, thanks to what Chris had told me of the plot, but nobody'd asked _me_, so I wasn't telling. Word was, though, that the Butcher was getting obsessed, and he would only respond to a call of distress if it had something to do with the Ghost and his militia.

Even with reinforcements being so close at hand, our prospects weren't particularly promising. We were out-gunned and out-manned, although by no means outmatched. Still, an inordinate amount of musket balls were imbedding themselves in my tree. They knew how to recognize officers, and they were gunning for me. It was against all rules of war, but this was clearly militia. They were in it to win, not to give the enemy a sporting chance. Martin had the right idea, but while I'd been busy upsetting the constraints of British battle tactics, there were still lines my superiors were not quite open to letting me cross.

Something had to be done, and fast. I had two options if I wanted to live. I could send a runner behind to Lieutenant Mahoney, and hope to have him arrive in time. Or I could send someone to locate Tavington with a dispatch informing him of some "ghostly" action. He'd come riding into the fray, chop off everybody's heads, and then examine them, only to find out that I'd completely lied about the Ghost's presence. And while any other officer would be content to let the chain of command have its way with me, Tavington probably would probably just run me through himself.

The man was a force to be reckoned with, both on the battlefield and off, and I had ruined my hopes of him arriving simply for the pleasure of my company (in a manly sense, of course) when I'd cheeked him repeatedly a month before. I'd gotten out of that one alive only by the good humor of Captains Bordon and Wilkins, who'd thought my smart mouth pretty funny and had held their commanding officer back after finishing laughing at me, although Tavington had taken that time to give me a magnificent black eye that had swelled to the size of an egg. They were a decent sort, though, because most other officers would have been content to sit back and watch their commander turn me into mincemeat. I'd been officially disciplined, yes, but word of the joke must have reached higher-ups, or Tavington just wasn't well-liked, because my punishment was little more than the proverbial slap on the wrist.

I didn't get it. I didn't maintain my normal grim and taciturn manner around him. I cheeked him, and laughed at him when his angry back was turned, and delighted when I saw his hackles rise. We might have been friends, had he any other disposition than that which he possessed, but I took great pleasure in watching him flare up. I didn't get it. Maybe you could just tie it into my death wish.

And I suppose it was that damn old death wish that made me decide to do what I did. As I reloaded my musket, having ordered everyone to plug away at the enemy for as long as they had shot (being the front-runners, we traveled light, with the idea being that we would camp out every week or so in a safe spot and wait for the supply trains to catch up and refresh us), I summoned our fleetest of foot and handed him a hastily scribbled note. "Find Colonel Tavington," I told him. "Give him this and bayonet him until he comes for us." Private Jenkins looked at me in shock. "I'm kidding about that last bit. Now go!" He saluted.

"Sir!"

I had long gotten over the need to giggle when someone called me 'sir.' When I'd first done it, I had chalked it up (for my men) to not being used to being addressed like that. I was young for sergeant, I said. People usually called me 'boy' or other, meaner things, but never 'sir.' They'd asked me if they could call me 'boy,' and I'd said, "What do you think?" And we were back to discipline. They were the privates, I was the sergeant, so if anybody was to be calling anybody 'boy,' it would be me.

I fretted. Had I done the right thing? Tavington would be able to turn the trick, even against so many, even with the skeleton force left him, the rest being detailed (much to his fury) to guard the supply line through this rebel-infested territory as it wended its way north. But would it be better not to have him come? The Continentals didn't give me much time to ponder this, though, as I saw them massing for a charge. _They're insane_, was my first thought. _We'll blow them to bits_. But we had no cannon. Ten or twenty of them would fall and the rest would keep coming, and butcher us all. There was only one thing to do. I pointed my bayonet at their still-forming ranks and bellowed, "_Charge!_"

We caught them by surprise, thank God; if they'd been prepared, it would have been suicide. But they were still forming up when we thundered across the road and crashed against their ranks. They recovered quickly at the sight of their comrades dying, and began to put up a good fight. But I'd trained my men to be ruthless and efficient, and these people still had hearts, so they were little match for us. A kid who couldn't be much older than sixteen took one look at what I'd done to his companion with my stolen sabre and retched. I ran him through as he knelt on the ground, gasping out for mercy, then turned to the next one. A deadly calm had fallen over me, and I heard anger sing in the silence. The back of my mind was like a movie projector, and I saw, over and over again, Chris's dead body, and her last words: "We come in pea—" It was so ironic that I laughed out loud as I heard it, a laugh that might have scared me if I heard it before all of this happened.

I was no longer aware of myself. My legs were running, my arms were slashing and hewing and slicing, but these were actions independent of my being. It was as though all of me had been withdrawn into the corner of my mind where Chris's death was on replay, like someone kept pressing the rewind button on my life. I kept going back to that moment, to those words, and it was like I might never catch up with real life, but was going to be stuck on that one page forever.

Despite our fighting like demons, the Continentals were gaining ground. More and more of us fell, although they died hard and took a bunch of Continentals with them, like I'd trained them. If help didn't arrive in the next few minutes, we were going to die, all of us. And then I heard the sweetest sound I've ever heard: the sound of marching feet, interspersed with galloping hooves. After killing my current opponent, I risked a glance behind me, and saw a small pack of Dragoons coming up behind me, with a large infantry force moving at double-time not far behind them. My message had arrived!

As the Dragoons rode into the fray, the Continentals realized they'd been beaten. But they couldn't turn now; we'd be too hard on their heels. As I turned back to the battle, I felt a sharp pain slide through my right side. It felt like a white-hot lance of fire gliding through my flesh. I put my fingers against the pain, and they came away sticky red. I bellowed like a bull and killed the one who'd done it, and he fell, a permanent expression of shock frozen to his face. A Continental, sensing weakness, charged at me. I sidestepped and parried, and while I had none of the subtleties of the great swordsmen, I had figured out enough of this thing to use it well. More pain shot through me as the movement agitated the wound. I could feel my entire side stiffening up, all of its functions centering around that one spot.

I'd been wounded before, of course, but they were just little scratches, nothing that a bandage couldn't fix. I'd tended to them myself, daubing them with alcohol confiscated from my men and binding them tightly with scraps of cloth. I kept a multitude of these scraps in several sizes, each soaked with alcohol to sterilize them. I trusted none of the camp doctors and refused to let them see me, on the pretence of having had had experiences with them. But I really feared they might inadvertently expose the secret of my gender. It was an "if I told you, I'd have to kill you" thing, and while I could probably make it look like a painful accident, I didn't want to have to. But at the moment I wasn't sure I had much choice, given the seriousness of this wound.

I had considered, several times, telling someone, making them my confidant and hopefully my friend. But a friend would ruin my reputation, and I always came back to the point that there was no one who could be completely and unequivocably trusted. So I went without; I continued on. I had to. The world came back to me, and I heard the screams of the dying, the shrieks of horses—someone drove a bayonet into the shoulder of a Dragoon's horse, and it toppled to the ground. But he jumped, rolling clear of the fall, and was up in an instant, wreaking merry hell among the Continentals that were still putting up resistance. There were few who could say that.

Clutching my side, I stared at the carnage wreaked, at those who stood around me—some panting and ruddy, some ashen-faced and tight-lipped, some grinning. To my right, the Dragoon was examining his horse. He muttered a soft curse and pulled out his pistol. Before I could say anything, he'd pulled the trigger and shot the animal. He felt my shocked eyes on him and turned. Blood streaked along his face, and I couldn't recognize him, or force myself to. "Bayonet through the sternum," he said. "Ten minutes of suffering, or a quick end. Which would you choose?" I honestly couldn't say, but he wasn't really looking for an answer, and quickly moved off.

***

We pitched camp there, as the day was almost done. I knew I was due to report in sooner or later, and my superiors would probably be getting more and more anxious, but I preferred later and was dreading it. I didn't really care to explain my lie about the Ghost, because no matter how I put it, I'd end up offending somebody. I was quiet that evening, sitting by myself in the corner of the tent that I'd staked out as my own, going about my evening business as though this were just another day of unending drudgery. I left once, heading off to the woods under pretence of taking a leak to clean and bind my wound, and I put on a fresh shirt. If you didn't mark the stiffness and care with which I walked, it seemed as though nothing had ever been wrong.

The summons came at dusk. I had seen gangs of soldiers and officers out examining the dead, so now I figured they'd reached the incriminating conclusion. A very young private arrived at the tent-flap and stammered out, "M-m-message for you, sir. L-Lord G-Gen-General C-C-Cornwallis req-requests your presence i-in the m-main tent." I nodded and said, "Don't stammer so much, Private. People might think you were afraid of something." I donned my uniform jacket and brushed by him, leaving him to gibber. (That had not been fair. I'd been giving him my stoniest death-glare the entire time he'd been in my presence, and that had been formidable even before the monster's coming.)

I walked through the now clear evening, birds singing, crickets chirping, frogs muttering their songs in their algae-encrusted ponds and occasionally breaking off with a sharp plop. Summer was dying; a chill settled over us at night, and we began to reach for the woolen blankets that had seemed annoying formality during the warm days, just hanging dead weights at the bottom of our packs, suspended on leather thongs. I ambled along slowly in the quiet, assorted sounds of tired soldiers, knowing that this relative peace would not last, that the war would only get harder, rage hotter. I didn't have much more time to muse, though, because I was walking up the hill to the Lord General's grand gilt tent.

I opened the tent flap and ducked my head under it. Flickering shadows danced like a movie across the canvas walls, cast there by candlelight. The candles were in silver candlesticks, upon little tables covered over with little cloths. And in there waited the general. He was fat and wore a white powdered wig, and wore the finest uniform I'd seen yet on any officer in the army. His face was grave and stern-looking, but his eyes were kind. He reminded me of my grandfather.

There were two other men in the tent. One of them also wore fine dress, with gold and epaulets and braiding strung all over it, and a powdered wig, but this man, considerably younger, also wore an idiotic look of self-importance that made me dislike him entirely too much for never having met him. And the third man I knew all too well: Colonel William Tavington, Green Dragoons.

As I entered the tent, he was bellowing at Cornwallis, something along these lines: "—a lie, an outright lie, wasting valuable time and resources! We've lost horses, we've lost men, all because of his blatant disregard for—"

"Nothing we could not stand to lose, Colonel," said Cornwallis in a grave tone of command, shutting Tavington up immediately. "As far as I'm concerned, it is a victory." This was much to my relief, as I had no illusions as to what Tavington was talking about. I lurked half in and half out of the tent flap until Cornwallis addressed me.

"Sergeant Stevenshire, you may enter." I did so, and gave a formal bow: deep enough to convey great respect, but not deep enough to appear fawning. Then I stood stiffly at attention until Cornwallis said, "At ease. Sergeant, word of your…antics has just reached my ears," he began slowly. "Your results are unquestionable, even though some of your…tactics, and battlefield commands, are certainly not regulation." I fought a cringe. So he knew about that…

"Some might even call these procedures…revolutionary," Cornwallis said, with a critical look. "Which is why, after examining your record, I have reached a decision on how to deal with you." He reached behind him to one of the little tables, and picked up a folded and sealed piece of paper. He offered it to me, and I took it with the unsteady hands of the surely doomed, sure I would find a dismissal lurking underneath the seal. I did not open it.

Cornwallis looked at me for a minute, blinked when I did not open it immediately, and then shrugged. "In it you will find a field commission…" And now I was opening it with clumsy fingers, trying to restrain myself from ripping it to bits in my haste to reach the contents. A small sound of tearing paper split the air, and I froze. Tavington snorted and rolled his eyes. A little coil of anger rose from my stomach, and I calmed myself. I would face whatever came, Tavington be damned.

The Lord General seemed amused by my disconcertion, and took a moment to hide his laughter before he continued. "I am well aware that you are an enlisted man, but in light of your considerable prowess, we feel that you have earned a promotion. So, I have awarded you a field commission as—"

"Captain," I breathed, having finally opened the seal.

"Green Dragoons," said Cornwallis, and I nearly fainted with shock. When I felt as though I wouldn't fall over with a hair's breadth of movement, I risked a glance at Tavington. He looked as shocked as I felt. His eyes were wide as saucers, and his jaw hung open in a look that might have been comical had it not been so _very _not funny.

**A/N: Wow, really ripping through these chapters. But as some of you may have noticed, they don't come unless the reviews come. There's a direct correlation here. Carrot…or stick. You choose. **

**Alhaeron**


	5. The Green Dragoons

**Bloody Red Flag**

**Alhaeron (formerly T.R.)**

**Disclaimer: **Oh, I'm sure you all know by now. Don't own _The Patriot_, Tavington, anybody in it, blah blah blah blah blah. Blah. No profit.

**A/N: **Back again by popular demand. I wrote this in 2005 and I decided, because I have way too much free time, to re-post it. That being said, I have no electronic copies of it, only hard ones, so this could take a while. Also, due to the fact that I'm writing a real book, that takes precedence, so if I have to choose between working on this and UFS (the book), it'll be UFS. Anyway, like I said way back when, this is a time travel fic. It's not a Mary Sue. It's going to be edited a little bit, because I've gotten a lot better at writing since then and there are some things I wrote that I just can't stand to read now, so I'm not going to inflict them upon you.

**Chapter Five: The Green Dragoons**

But the colonel did not waste much time on shock. His reputation had him down as a man who was not easily surprised, and this must have taken him greatly by surprise if he'd been incapacitated by it for this long. While I was still staring, open-mouthed, at Cornwallis, Tavington closed his mouth, then opened it again, but this time words came out of it. "My Lord, I really must protest!" he said, in a voice that was half a yelp. He looked like a kicked dog.

But Cornwallis must have been anticipating something like this from Tavington, for he cut off the colonel smoothly. "Colonel, if you have any grievances—"

"Believe me, _sir_, I do!"

"Kindly do not interrupt, Colonel. Now, if you have any grievances, I welcome you to discuss them after the business of getting Captain Stevenshire outfitted and prepared is taken care of."

"But, General—"

"I will hear no more out of you now, sir," bellowed Cornwallis, losing his temper, "and if you continue to disobey me, I will not hear _anything _you have to say!"

Tavington deflated, and knew he was beaten, but he was not chastened and would not make himself out to be so. "Not that you ever listen anyway," he muttered petulantly, and stalked out of the tent. The other man, the one I'd disliked on sight, finally spoke.

"Quite a boorish fellow, don't you think, My Lord?" Cornwallis just huffed. There had obviously been altercations of this sort before. There was a pause, to let the tension in the tent uncoil somewhat, and then the Lord General turned to me.

"Captain, you need to report to the quartermaster and turn in your old uniform and outfit, and receive your new one. You need only show the staff there your commission, and they will give you what you need. Then you will report to the Green Dragoons' section of camp." After all this time, I finally found my voice.

"Thank you, My Lord." He waved his hand regally in the direction of the tent flap, and I bowed hurriedly and left.

***

My men looked up when I entered the tent for the last time, to collect my belongings. I was too preoccupied to even tell them to "at ease," and they watched silently as I bustled around, hunting up my gear. I carried all I could, and what I could not carry, I strapped on. Not for the first time I wished for a horse, as I bustled to and fro, clattering with pots and pans and bits of extra weight. I finally dumped all of the stuff I'd be carrying to the supply station outside the tent, and re-entered, jangling. My men hid grins and turned snickers into coughs, and I shot them glares. But they were curious, I could tell.

I opened my mouth once, closed it, then opened it again. Finally I said, "I have been given a field commission as a captain, Green Dragoons." Some of them looked at each other with expressions of mild shock, but the majority shrugged as if to say, "Saw that coming." I was known as a fair leader, sure, but we'd never developed an affection for each other. After all, life of the British Regulars, what was one commander to another?

I kept going, though. I felt I had to say _something_. "I don't know who your new commanding officer will be, whether it'll be someone new or one of you will be promoted. I feel confident, however, that any one of you could command this company at any time." They nodded, but they didn't care. I had no news of real importance to them. "You'll be reinforced. We lost a good deal of men in this morning's action." I paused, then grinned. "Give 'em hell, all right?" Rude laugher resounded through the tent that promised obedience to my parting words. "Good luck," I said finally. There were various murmurs of thanks and farewell, and then I left the tent.

"Captain," I whispered into the still evening air, then grabbed my gear and trundled off.

I cut a funny sight, bulging with all of this weight. Heads looked up from various duties, be it washing or cleaning or grooming or snoring, as I walked by. The supply tent seemed a very long way off, and I cursed and muttered under my breath, condemning Tavington, Cornwallis, and the Ghost to premature and very painful deaths. When I finally reached the tent, I had a little group of followers, laughing and jeering at me. I spat curses back at them that would have made a sailor blush, and they left, muttering. I dumped the stuff I wasn't going to exchange outside of the tent and entered.

It was different from last time. Outfitting a captain is far more important that outfitting a Regular, and a lot more care was taken with me. I was shown how to put it all on, and then, instead of a pack, I was given saddlebags and a blanket roll. "Um…what am I supposed to do with these?" The soldier helping me gave me a look that plainly said, "How did this moron manage to get promoted?"

"You'll have a horse," he said. "It's being brought up now."

"Oh." There was nothing else to say in the face of my stupidity.

"We'll help you with that, too."

"Thank you."

After a while, we heard hooves on the spongy grass outside. I tore out of the tent and skidded to a halt in front of a lovely bay mare with a look in her eye that said if I came any closer she'd take my head off and use it as a chew toy. I gazed at her with nothing but pure adoration. After all these years of futile wishing and hoping, I was getting a pony! Of course, I'd never wanted a pony, per se: I'd been too big for one since I was eleven. Now I wanted a horse. What color or gender I didn't care, just so it was young and strong and had a need for speed, as I did.

As she took a wayward snap at the young man holding her, I rushed forward to wrap my arms around her neck. There was only one horse who'd ever managed to successfully intimidate me, and this was not it. However, this mare had me pegged and, quick as a striking snake, she whipped her head around and clamped her teeth down on my outstretched arm. I had been bitten, kicked, stomped, and thrown by all manner of horses, though, so this wasn't a big deal. She just wasn't a horse for hugs.

Just as quickly as her, I seized the reins from the private, who relinquished them gratefully and, twisting, I put one foot in a stirrup and swung aboard. The mare pranced and stamped, huffing and puffing, but I coolly manipulated the reins and waited. After she'd settled enough to be approached, I saw the equipment master coming forward with my saddlebags. I could feel her tensing under me, and I waited. Closer, closer… It was a sure thing. She was going to kick. As soon as the quartermaster got within range, I spurred her forward, shocking her into disengaging her hindquarters. Realizing that I was smart enough to have figured out that trick, she let the quartermaster fasten on the bags and baggage, and waited, like a coiled snake, for her next opportunity. I called her Snake from then on, and carefully observed the way the equipment was arranged, and waited for her to try again.

Finally, when all was said and done, they handed me the last bit of my gear: my helmet. I lifted it onto my head and struggled with the buckle, feeling its top-heavy weight making my head bob around. When I'd gotten it into place, I thanked the supply troop and tilted my heels into Snake's sides, all too conscious of the spurs on my new boots. As she moved off brusquely, I felt the sword clanking against my side: I'd forgone a new one, preferring my old one. It was something familiar, something I knew I could handle. Then Snake and I moved out to the camp of the Green Dragoons.

***

They sheltered apart from the rest of the army, on the sloping sides of a mist-covered hill. Clouds had obscured the stars as we made our slow but cautious way to the encampment. I let Snake choose her steps, as the ground was uneven and I figured that she'd know better how to make her way than I. She had wonderful gaits: a smooth, powerful walk, a graceful trot, and a canter like riding a rocking horse, though I'd not yet tried her at the gallop. If she'd only quit trying to reach around and bite me, this would be horse heaven.

All the way here, especially on the smooth expanse of ground between the Regular encampment and the hill, on which we'd cantered, she kept stopping, ostensibly to scratch at a fly-bite on her leg. The jerky nature of the stops, however, suggested an ulterior and far more devious motive; indeed, she moved off disappointedly every time I failed to topple over her neck.

As we closed in on the camp, I saw horses hitched to posts outside the few communal tents, sometimes two or three to a picket. I'd been told to report to my commanding officer—three guesses who—and I figured that the tent with only one horse on a post had to be his. Just before I breached the perimeter, another horse wheeled out of near-nowhere and deposited itself in front of me. Snake spooked and started and I wasted a good couple minutes trying to get her back under control. It was only after this was accomplished that I noticed that this horse had a rider as well.

"Halt!" he said in a decidedly too self-important manner, but I was in no mood to bandy words with fools. I tiredly pulled out my very sorry-looking commission (having been handled by a lot of people today) and shoved it at him. He glared at it for a minute, then looked up at me, an evil grin creasing his face. "Says here you're to report to Colonel Tavington," he said. I nodded. "Poor soul," he continued. "Wouldn't want to be you right now. Commander's sulking; he met with Cornwallis on the subject of his new captain and didn't like what he heard." He looked back at the paper. "'Spose that'd be you."

"And you are?" I said exasperatedly.

"Lieutenant—"

"Well, _Lieutenant_, I suggest you shut your mouth and move out of the way or I will shut it for you and report you to your commander, sulking or not. _Am I clear_?" I used my best Sergeant Hard-ass voice. The lieutenant gave me a hurt look, but moved away, and as I passed on I heard him muttering, "Can't see why he doesn't like you; peas in a pod, right?" I let Snake bite his horse in passing, then we marched up to Tavington's tent, for the first time in the same foul mood and with the same intent of purpose: busting ass and going to bed.

I spent five minutes fiddling with the post, and tying Snake's reins to it. Some horses were trustworthy enough to be left untied for hours and they wouldn't stray; others could just have the reins wrapped a couple of times around whatever object was handy and they'd stay. Snake was neither of these. I tried the second tack, and she jerked and pulled so that the reins just slid off the hitching post. I tried several more knots, then, when she'd resorted to chewing the reins to get away, I slapped her away from them and tied her so tightly she couldn't reach them. Furious and fuming, I stuck my head inside Tavington's tent.

It was nothing like Cornwallis's: no ornamentation or frippery or decorations of any sort. The colonel, despite his rank, lived a Spartan lifestyle. A single candelabra of burnished brass illuminated the interior; a bed hugged the far wall; a small end-table with various personal effects stood by it stolidly. The centerpiece was a small, battered desk at which the colonel himself sat. "Come in," he said wearily, without looking at me. I entered, saluted, then stood stiffly.

"Captain Stevenshire reporting for duty, sir." He looked up at that.

"Ah, Captain." He gave me a wan smile, but it wasn't so much a smile as a showing of teeth. I noted that both canines were exposed, and waited.

"Captain, I have spoken to the Lord General about you. I must say, I did not approve of your being transferred to my command." He stood and squeezed around his desk. "You have never made a good impression on me, from the time you insulted me—"

"As I recall, sir, your fist made a wonderful impression on my face," I said before I could stop myself, then winced. But he just grinned, predatorily.

"So I did, and you'd do well to remember that. Now, I was disciplined for that, and warned that any further unorthodox disciplinary methods would result in my suspension and possible removal of my rank," he said wearily, with the air of a man reciting an oft-repeated passage.

"_However_," he continued, and his voice sank to a hiss, "if I _ever _meet with such insolent behavior while you remain under my command, the consequences will be far more dire. I know you lied to me today, and that lie has gotten you the good humor of my superiors, as well as your rank, but _I don't care_. If you had been under my command then, I would have had you shot for insubordination. You'd do well to remember that too.

"But," he said, drawing back a pace, "your results have been unquestionable thus far. Should this continue…" He trailed off, shrugging, then said, "I run a tight ship—"

"I'm beginning to see that. Sir." He gave me a warning glare and kept on.

"I run a tight ship, and insubordination is not tolerated. Look," he said, "let's get down to facts. If it were up to me, you'd be back with the Regulars by morning. But it isn't, and I've been ordered to take you on for at least a year. That's how long your commission lasts." He gestured at a thin slip of paper on his desk. "So I'll say this: the life of a Dragoon is neither easy nor fun. But I can promise you one thing," he said, staring straight at me, straight _through _me.

"What?" I said, forcing a tremor from my voice.

"It is always interesting." He gave me the first non-wolfish smile I'd seen from him yet. "You didn't piss yourself when I was busting your arse, I'll give you that. Better men than you have done it." His face darkened again. "But that's all you get. Dismissed, Captain, and remember what I said. Go to Tent A; you'll find an empty bed there." He smirked a little, then turned away, and I tore out of the tent as fast as I could go. My heart was pounding so hard that I couldn't walk a straight line.

"That went well," I muttered to Snake, who gazed at me reproachfully with her lips flapping emptily, trying to catch hold of her reins. When I went to untie her, she took a snap at me instead, and I dealt her a smack on the neck. "I'm not in the mood, you silly horse, so just settle down and behave for once!" After a few minutes of difficulty finding Tent A, I tethered Snake and poked my head in. You could hear the crickets.

"Who're you?" someone asked, after a minute of awkward silence.

"I'm, ah, your new tent-mate?"

The man looked back at me, confused.

"How? We haven't had any extra space in ages. C and D have both got room, but we're full up. Sorry, mate," he said as I turned to go.

"Right," I said dreamily. "Sorry to bother you…" Inside, though, I seethed. Tavington! This was his petty little revenge! That was what he had been smirking about.

But I wasn't in the mood to go galumphing up and down looking for empty beds. It had turned into a clear night, and warm, so I laid my bedroll under the stars at the edge of the encampment. After tethering Snake to a stake as tightly as I could, I settled in for a long-awaited and much-needed sleep. I was out like a light.

**A/N: And so it begins…again. Keep the reviews coming, peeps. **

**Alhaeron**


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